Digital Birmingham is a Birmingham City Council initiative and part of a city wide strategic partnership of more than 40 public, private and voluntary organisations
As part of its plans to establish Birmingham as a digital city in 2010, Digital Birmingham is getting together with a number of local families to check the city's 'digital pulse' and find out how switched on we all really are.
We'll be focusing on different issues like gaming, digital media, money management and education throughout the year on the Digital Birmingham website but first we looked at the Taylor's from Harborne to see if they could be described as a 'digital family'.
Bren, Juliet and their children all have mobile phones so most of their communication is digital. According to the Office for National Statistics, 79% of UK households own a mobile phone, so they're in the majority here. Like 65% of the country, their TV is digital, and they also have a Wii and PS3 which doubles as a blueray player, along with digital radios.
Last year's Digital Britain report estimated that 17 million people over the age of 15 didn't use computers at home, but the Taylor's definitely aren't amongst them. They have a variety of laptops linked to a secure wireless network. and do a lot of their shopping, banking and communicating online.
The Taylor's also have a digital weather station in the garden so they can tell the outside temperature without having to go out, and they're trying to save energy by using a DEHEMS meter monitoring device that shows them online what their energy consumption is.
Despite being pretty well switched on digitally, the Taylor's say they like nothing better than playing old-fashioned board games and reading books.
If you want to join in the project and tell us about your family's digital habits, go to www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/family.
(Source: Office for National Statistics 'Focus on the Digital Age' 2007)
